Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10553/52630
Title: Different pattern of contamination by legacy POPs in two populations from the same geographical area but with completely different lifestyles: Canary Islands (Spain) vs. Morocco
Authors: Henríquez Hernández, Luis Alberto 
Pérez Luzardo, Octavio Luis 
Pérez Arellano, José Luis 
Carranza Rodríguez, Cristina 
Jaén Sánchez, Nieves
Almeida-González, Maira 
Ruiz-Suárez, Norberto
Fernández Valerón, Josefa Pilar 
Camacho, Maria 
Zumbado, M. 
Domínguez Boada, Luis María 
UNESCO Clasification: 32 Ciencias médicas
3214 Toxicología
Keywords: Canary Islands
Lifestyle
Morocco
Persistent organic pollutants
Polychlorinated biphenyls, et al
Issue Date: 2016
Journal: Science of the Total Environment 
Abstract: The archipelago of the Canary Islands is one of the so-called ultra-peripheral territories of the European Union due to its geographical location away from the continent. Although the level of socioeconomic development and lifestyle of this region is comparable to that of any other of the European Union, it is just 100 km off the coast of Morocco, in the African continent. The population of the Canaries has been extensively studied with respect to their levels of POPs, and it has been described that their levels are relatively high compared to other European regions. It has been speculated with that the proximity to Africa may be associated with this level of contamination, but so far this theory has not been verified. This paper describes for the first time the levels of organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in a sample of the population of Morocco (n = 131), which were compared with those of a similar sample of the population of permanent residents in the Canary Islands (n = 100) in order to check this hypothesis. Our results showed that Moroccans have higher median values of OCPs than the residents in the Canaries (σ OCP = 150.2 ng/g lw vs. 83.4 ng/g lw, p = 0.0001). Regarding the PCBs, although recent studies have reported that new environmental sources of PCBs exist in several African countries (including Morocco), the plasma levels of most congeners were significantly higher in Canarians than in Moroccans, especially for the dioxin-like PCBs (median = 7.3 ng/g lw vs. 0.0 ng/g lw, p = 0.0001). The detailed analysis of our results suggests that the levels of these pollutants in the Canarian people are more influenced by their lifestyle and the previous use of these chemicals in the archipelago than by its geographical vicinity with Morocco.
URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10553/52630
ISSN: 0048-9697
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.09.042
Source: Science of the Total Environment [ISSN 0048-9697], v. 541, p. 51-57, ( 2016)
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